News

ELDs Slash Hours of Service Violations

by
Anna Mischke
| Jul 06, 2018

The Electronic Logging Device mandate cut hours of service violations in half, according to data from The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. There have been roughly 300,000 inspections every month over the past year.

Pre-ComplianceFrom May to December 2017, fleets slowly adopted ELD technology. Hours of service violations averaged 1.28 percent throughout these months with a flurry of research around the new regulation.

Early AdoptionDuring the soft implementation of the mandate from December 2017 to April 2018, HOS violation rates dipped to 0.93 percent. At this time, there was widespread contention among the industry regarding the pros and cons of ELDs. Recently Coretex surveyed 303 U.S. trucking companies on the technology, with 47 percent of fleet operators responding they believe ELDs benefit the transportation industry. Thirty eight percent do not think ELDs will improve their CSA scores and 15 percent have yet to decide.

Hard EnforcementThe ELD mandate rolled out full enforcement April 2018. Since then, the average violation rate decreased to .67 percent, a 48 percent drop from pre-compliance time frame. Out of 559,940 inspections, only 4,720 resulted in hours of service violations.

While hours of service violations are low, 69 percent of Coretex survey respondents said that ELDs did not improve driver satisfaction. Thirty three percent said that they find it more difficult to retain drivers due to the strict HOS compliance. Outside of HOS in relation to ELDs, fleets ranked real-time tracking, ease of use, and reporting capabilities as the most substantial areas of improvement.